1 month ago
philgyford : Britain's “broken society”: Through a glass darkly | The Economist - Good article on how many things that you'd think would define "broken Britain" have been improving. Britain's better.
# copy7 month ago
nelson : Banned from Tristan de Cunha - Interesting story about a tiny island nation
# copy12 month ago
nelson : Lusitania's cargo - I never knew the passenger liner was likely carrying munitions
# copy14 month ago
philgyford : The little page of TRANSPORT CHAOS - Great idea. Love the descriptions of chaos levels. Longer-term graphs would be nice.
# copy17 month ago
philgyford : YouTube - The Day Today - Britain in Crisis - Always worth a watch when it looks like things are tanking. "This is Britain and everything's alright. Everything's alright. It's OK. It's fine."
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22 month ago
philgyford : Film Archive - FourDocs - Listen to Britain - Nice short film of images and sounds from wartime Britain (if you sit through the introduction from the Canadian). Terence Davies mentions it in the current 'Sight & Sound'.
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23 month ago
deusx : Why the great British breakfast is a killer - Times Online - "You never see anyone with a degree eating a fry-up; they're too intelligent to consume it, says Times restaurant critic"
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27 month ago
jcgregorio : Kowloon Walled City - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - An 'between' space, that at its peak has 350,000 people living on 7 acres, about 3,500,000 / mile^2
nelson : Kowloon walled city - Quirk of the British control over Hong Kong left a lawless interzone in the middle of the city
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29 month ago
philgyford : spEak You’re bRanes - Amazing but depressing selection of comments left on the BBC 'Have Your Say' site. cf Mitchell & Webb's "You may not know anything about the issue, but I bet you reckon something." (via Ben Hammersley)
Rod Begbie : spEak You're bRanes - Highlighting the best of the right-wing hystericals who post to the BBC News "Have Your Say" boards. [via] #
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30 month ago
deusx : Pet Shop Boys' Bar Code Manifesto (Three Minds @ Organic) - "The whole package—music, message, meme, media—comes together nicely. Like the best cultural phenomena, this can be enjoyed at several levels of participation—at least one of which involves a dance floor."
# copy35 month ago
philgyford : House of Commons, Journal | British History Online - Going back to 1547 (and House of Lords), could be handy for Pepys. But, annoyingly, very un-guessable URLs for the daily archives. Hmm.
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37 month ago
plasticbag : People still seem to be having the conversation I accidentally started last year - where are all the bloody UK start-ups? - I can't claim to be thrilled that we're still wondering around the territory a year later. What a depressing situation. Maybe venture people should start actively courting forward-thinking technologists in the UK?
# copy41 month ago
plasticbag : We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to replace the national anthem with 'Gold' by Spandau Ballet - The British, as ever, cutting to the heart of the world's big issues. Altways believe in your soul. You've got the power to know. Britain, you're indestructable...
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45 month ago
philgyford : Analyst Equity: Mid-Atlantic reading on the English - I like the summary of American/English character differences (via ObLinks).
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45 month ago
plasticbag : Imagining Albion: The Great British Future - Radio 4's doing a show this evening about the history of Britain as expressed in Science Fiction. Looks pretty interesting, although unlikely that I'll get near a radio to actually hear it, unfortunately.
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50 month ago
philgyford : Geograph British Isles - photograph every grid square! - IS this new or have I just not seen it before? "Aims to collect a geographically representative photograph for every square kilometre of the British Isles." Lovely. Nice Google Earth integration too. (via Tim/twisty)
joshua : Geograph British Isles - photograph every grid square! - pretty dense
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54 month ago
plasticbag : Societies 'worse off when they have God on their side' - “In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy and abortion in the prosperous democracies."
jkottke : No need for God to have a healthy society - From a recent study: "In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy and abortion in the prosperous democracies". This seems l
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57 month ago
plasticbag : Ryan Carson writes about his experience of start-ups in the UK (and his theories on the class system) - I don't quite buy the class thing - I think it's just that the British don't like anyone whatsoever to stick their head up above the parapet. You only have to look at the tabloid press to see that...
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58 month ago
Jason Shellen : The Great British Venn Diagram - Handy for those of you who aren't a geographical smarty pants like me. [via gwaldon.blogspot.com] #
Rod Begbie : The Great British Venn Diagram - Tell your "United Kingdom" from your "Great Britain" [via] #
kayodeok : The Great British Venn Diagram (or the difference between England, Great Britain, The British Isles and the United Kingdom) - So I guess a lot of people are in some doubt as to what the difference is between England, Great Britain, the British Isles and the United Kingdom. Here I present a handy-dandy Venn diagram to explain this.
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64 month ago
plasticbag : The new home secretary is sticking with ID cards - despite the fact that I don't know anyone in this country who actually wants them - "The new home secretary, Charles Clarke, today rejected calls to reconsider plans for ID cards after Labour backbenchers suggested the departure of David Blunkett yesterday should prompt a rethink."
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64 month ago
plasticbag : The bodging of the BBC - "And none of this has anything to do with bricks, mortar and the ability to chart a course. None of it helps an institution we could easily help by guaranteed licence fee and lengthened charter if we wanted to, for barely the price of a new ID card."
# copy65 month ago
plasticbag : Attack of the Clones: How Britain came to be full of millions of identical trees - 25 million English elms died from Dutch elm disease in the 1970s, and the reason? Turns out that every single tree was a clone of a single elm introduced by the Romans...
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